Glossary

• Agency:
• The ability and privilege God gives people to choose and to act for themselves.
• Apostasy: 
• A turning away from the truth by individuals, the Church, or entire nations.
• Atonement:
• To reconcile man to God.  As used in the scriptures, to atone is to suffer the penalty for an act of sin, thereby removing the effects of sin from the repentant sinner and allowing him to be reconciled to God. Jesus Christ was the only one capable of making a perfect atonement for all mankind. He was able to do so because of his selection and foreordination in the Grand Council before the world was formed (Ether 3:14; Moses 4:1–2; Abr. 3:27), his divine Sonship, and his sinless life. His atonement included his suffering for the sins of mankind in the Garden of Gethsemane, the shedding of his blood, and his death and subsequent resurrection from the grave (Isa. 53:3–12; Mosiah 3:5–11; Alma 7:10–13). Because of the Atonement, all people will rise from the dead with immortal bodies (1 Cor. 15:22). The Atonement also provides the way for us to be forgiven of our sins and live forever with God. But a person who has reached the age of accountability and received the law can receive these blessings only if he has faith in Jesus Christ, repents of his sins, receives the ordinances of salvation, and obeys the commandments of God. Those who do not reach the age of accountability and those without the law are redeemed through the Atonement (Mosiah 15:24–25; Moro. 8:22). The scriptures clearly teach that if Christ had not atoned for our sins, no law, ordinance, or sacrifice would satisfy the demands of justice, and man could never regain God’s presence (2 Ne. 2; 9).
• Confirmation (Laying on of Hands):
• The act of placing one’s hands on a person’s head as part of a priesthood ordinance. Many priesthood ordinances are performed by the laying on of hands, such as ordinations, blessings, administering to the sick, confirming Church membership, and conferring the Holy Ghost.
• Covenant:
• An agreement between God and man, but they do not act as equals in the agreement. God gives the conditions for the covenant, and men agree to do what he asks them to do. God then promises men certain blessings for their obedience.

  Principles and ordinances are received by covenant. Members of the Church who make such covenants promise to honor them. For example, members covenant with the Lord at baptism and renew those covenants by partaking of the sacrament. They make further covenants in the temple. The Lord’s people are a covenant people and are greatly blessed as they keep their covenants with the Lord.
• Dispensation:
• A gospel dispensation is a period of time in which the Lord has at least one authorized servant on the earth who bears the keys of the holy priesthood.  Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith, and others have each started a new gospel dispensation. When the Lord organizes a dispensation, the gospel is revealed anew so that the people of that dispensation do not have to depend on past dispensations for knowledge of the plan of salvation. The dispensation begun by Joseph Smith is known as the “dispensation of the fullness of times.”
• Endure to the End:
• To remain true to the commandments of God despite tempation, opposition, and adversity
• Eternal Life:
• To live forever as families in God’s presence (D&C 132:19–20, 24, 55). Eternal life is God’s greatest gift to man.
• Exaltation:
• The highest state of happiness and glory in the celestial kingdom.  Eternal life in God's presence; to become like our Father in Heaven and live in His presence.
• Fall (of Adam and Eve):
• The process by which mankind became mortal on this earth. When Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, they became mortal, that is, subject to sin and death. Adam became the “first flesh” upon the earth (Moses 3:7). Latter-day revelation makes clear that the Fall is a blessing and that Adam and Eve should be honored as the first parents of all mankind.  The Fall was a necessary step in man’s progress. Because God knew that the Fall would occur, he had planned in the premortal life for a Savior. Jesus Christ came in the meridian of time to atone for the fall of Adam and also for man’s individual sins on condition of man’s repentance.
• Gospel:
• God’s plan of salvation, made possible through the atonement of Jesus Christ. The gospel includes the eternal truths or laws, covenants, and ordinances needed for mankind to enter back into the presence of God. God restored the fulness of the gospel to the earth in the nineteenth century through the Prophet Joseph Smith.
• Grace:
• The enabling power from God that allows men and women to obtain blessings in this life and to gain eternal life and exaltation after they have exercised faith, repented, and given their best effort to keep the commandments. Such divine help or strength is given through the mercy and love of God. Every mortal person needs divine grace because of Adam’s fall and also because of man’s weaknesses.
Immortality: 
• The condition of living forever in a resurrected state, not subject to physical death.
• Judgement:
• To evaluate behavior in relation to the principles of the gospel; to decide; to discern good from evil.
• Mercy:
• The spirit of compassion, tenderness, and forgiveness. Mercy is one of the attributes of God. Jesus Christ offers mercy to us through his atoning sacrifice.
• Physical Death:
• Separation of our spirit, which lives forever and cannot die, from our physical body.
• Premortal life:
• The life before earth life. All men and women lived with God as his spirit children before coming to the earth as mortal beings. This is sometimes called the first estate (Abr. 3:26).
• Priesthood:
• The authority and power that God gives to man to act in all things for the salvation of man (D&C 50:26–27). Male members of the Church who hold the priesthood are organized into quorums and are authorized to perform ordinances and certain administrative functions in the Church.
• Prophet:
• A person who has been called by and speaks for God. As a messenger of God, a prophet receives commandments, prophecies, and revelations from God. His responsibility is to make known God’s will and true character to mankind and to show the meaning of his dealings with them. A prophet denounces sin and foretells its consequences. He is a preacher of righteousness. On occasion, prophets may be inspired to foretell the future for the benefit of mankind. His primary responsibility, however, is to bear witness of Christ. The President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is God’s prophet on earth today. Members of the First Presidency and the Twelve Apostles are sustained as prophets, seers, and revelators.
• Redeemer:
• Jesus Christ is the great Redeemer of mankind because he, through his atonement, paid the price for the sins of mankind and made possible the resurrection of all people.
• Redemption:
• To deliver, to purchase, or to ransom, such as to free a person from bondage by payment. Redemption refers to the atonement of Jesus Christ and to deliverance from sin. Jesus’ atonement redeems all mankind from physical death. Through his atonement, those who have faith in him and who repent are also redeemed from spiritual death.
• Reformer:
• To reform is to make changes to something in order to improve it.  The term reformers refers to those men and women (suck as Martin Luther, John Calvin, William Tyndale, and John Wycliffe) who protested the practices of the existing church, which they felt needed to be reformed.
• Restitution:
• The return of a thing or condition that has been taken away or lost.
• Restoration:
• God’s reestablishment of the truths and ordinances of his gospel among men on earth. The gospel of Jesus Christ was lost from the earth through the apostasy that took place following the earthly ministry of Christ’s Apostles. That apostasy made necessary the restoration of the gospel. Through visions, the ministering of angels, and revelations to men on the earth, God restored the gospel. The Restoration started with the Prophet Joseph Smith (JS—H 1:1–75; D&C 128:20–21) and has continued to the present through the work of the Lord’s living prophets.
• Resurrection:
• The reuniting of the spirit body with the physical body of flesh and bones after death. After resurrection, the spirit and body will never again be separated, and the person will become immortal. Every person born on earth will be resurrected because Jesus Christ overcame death (1 Cor. 15:20–22).  Jesus Christ was the first person to be resurrected on this earth (Acts 26:23; Col. 1:18; Rev. 1:5). The New Testament gives ample evidence that Jesus rose with his physical body: his tomb was empty, he ate fish and honey, he had a body of flesh and bones, people touched him, and the angels said he had risen (Mark 16:1–6; Luke 24:1–12, 36–43; John 20:1–18). Latter-day revelation confirms the reality of the resurrection of Christ and of all mankind (Alma 11:40–45; 40; 3 Ne. 11:1–17; D&C 76; Moses 7:62).
• Revelation:
• Communication from God to his children on earth. Revelation may come through the Light of Christ and the Holy Ghost by way of inspiration, visions, dreams, or visits by angels. Revelation provides guidance that can lead the faithful to eternal salvation in the celestial kingdom.  The Lord reveals his work to his prophets and confirms to believers that the revelations to the prophets are true (Amos 3:7). Through revelation, the Lord provides individual guidance for every person who seeks it and who has faith, repents, and is obedient to the gospel of Jesus Christ. “The Holy Ghost is a revelator,” said Joseph Smith, and “no man can receive the Holy Ghost without receiving revelations.”  In the Lord’s Church, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles are prophets, seers, and revelators to the Church and to the world. The President of the Church is the only one whom the Lord has authorized to receive revelation for the Church (D&C 28:2–7). Every person may receive personal revelation for his own benefit.
• Salvation:
• To be saved from both physical and spiritual death. All people will be saved from physical death by the grace of God, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Each individual can also be saved from spiritual death as well by the grace of God, through faith in Jesus Christ. This faith is manifested in a life of obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel and service to Christ.
• Spiritual death:
• Separation from God and his influences; to die as to things pertaining to righteousness. Lucifer and a third part of the hosts of heaven suffered a spiritual death when they were cast out of heaven (D&C 29:36–37).  Spiritual death was introduced into the world by the fall of Adam (Moses 6:48). Mortals with evil thoughts, words, and works are spiritually dead while still alive on earth (1 Tim. 5:6). Through the atonement of Jesus Christ and by obedience to the principles and ordinances of the gospel, men and women can become clean from sin and overcome spiritual death.